Ariel Castro: Daughter of Amanda Berry is His, DNA Tests Confirms & Adult Daughter Says Her Father is Dead to Her [VIDEO]
Ariel Castro is the father of Amanda Berry's daughter DNA tests confirmed on Friday.
Castro was charged with three counts of rape and kidnapping for alledgely holding Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus captive for nearly 10 years. The women were freed on May 6. With them was a 6-year-old identified as Berry's daughter.
On Friday, the Ohio attorney general said tests confirmed that Castro was the little girl's father. Her birth has been described as a traumatic one, as Knight was forced to deliver the child on Christmas Day in 2006 under Castro's death threats. Knight told police that Castro threatened to kill her and Berry if the baby didn't survive.
Knight saved the little girl's life when she was born in an inflatable pool by giving the infant CPR. The newborn and the women were not allowed to seek medical treatment.
Castro is currently being held on $8 million bond and prosectors are considering applying the death penalty to the case. Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy McGinty said his office would decide whether to bring aggravated murder charges, since Knight has told police that Castro caused her miscarriages. She was pregnant at least five times but Castro starved and beat her until she miscarried.
"Capital punishment must be reserved for those crimes that are truly the worst examples of human conduct," McGinty said. "The reality is we still have brutal criminals in our midst who have no respect for the rule of law or human life."
Angie Gregg, Castro's daughter from a previous relationship, told CNN in an interview that her father was now dead to her. She said Castro never physically abused her but he did inflict violence upon her mother, Grimilda Figueroa. Gregg used to be horrified by how her father treated her mother.
"I've seen him basically stomp on her like she was a man," Gregg said.
Gregg said that her mother finally had enough of the abuse and left him. At the time, she believed that there was still good in her father despite his abuse against her mother. Gregg said her mother died of cancer in 2012 and she now felt that she was without both parents.
"I don't cry for him," she said.
